The present disclosure relates generally to communication between known or trusted sources using an electronic device, such as a handheld or portable device. This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Electronic devices, such as notebook computers, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and so forth, are commonly used to exchange various types of electronic communications. Due to the ease and low cost of sending electronic communications, such as e-mails and text messages, these types of communications have rapidly expanded, in some instances inundating individuals with both authorized messages as well as unsolicited (and often undesired) messages. As a result, a person may miss or accidentally disregard e-mails or messages that they might otherwise be interested in reading.
In addition, in some instances illegal or illicit enterprises may employ electronic messages in attempts to acquire information from an individual for improper purposes. In such instances, the entity attempting to acquire the information may create electronic messages which appear to be from an entity with which a person normally interacts or with whom they might normally provide such information. As a result, an individual runs two risks: responding to a message to which he or she should not respond, or disregarding an authentic or valid message which cannot be distinguished from an illicit or undesired message.
Thus an individual's inability to easily distinguish between those messages which are of interest from those which are not of interest may pose a variety of problems for an individual. Namely, an individual may inadvertently miss messages of actual import or interest, such as messages from a financial institution or store with which the individual does business. Alternatively, an individual may waste time on unsolicited messages, or may disclose sensitive information to unauthorized parties, by failing to discard or disregard messages that are not from an institution that they appear to be from.